Foreign News
Trump signs order to dismantle US education department
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, fulfilling a campaign pledge and a long-cherished goal of some conservatives.
Accusing the agency of “breath-taking failures”, the Republican president vowed to return the money it controls to individual states.
“We’re going to shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said, although the White House acknowledged that closing the agency outright would require an act of Congress. The move is already facing legal challenges from those seeking to block the agency’s closure as well as sweeping cuts to its staff announced last week.
Surrounded by children seated at school desks in the White House on Thursday, Trump said “the US spends more money on education by far than any other country”, yet he added that students rank near the bottom of the list.
The White House stated that his administration would move to cut parts of the department that remain within legal boundaries.
The executive order is likely to face legal challenges, like many of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal government.
At the signing ceremony, Trump praised Linda McMahon, whom he appointed to lead the department, and expressed his hope she would be the last secretary of education.
He said he would find “something else” for her to do within the administration.
After Trump signed the order, Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy announced plans to bring legislation aimed at closing the department.
But Republicans hold a slim 53-47 majority in the Senate, and closing a federal department would require 60 votes, making such a goal a longshot.
But even if the department is not formally closed, the Trump administration could decimate its funding and staff as it has done with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which subsequently stopped many of its programmes and humanitarian work.
The text of the executive order does not include specifics on what actions the administration will take and which programmes might be axed.
It orders McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department and give authority of such matters to state and local governments.
It also directs her to ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely”.
Established in 1979, the education department administers student loans and runs programmes that help low-income students.
But Trump has accused it of indoctrinating young people with racial, sexual, and political material.
Most US children attend public schools, which are free and run by local officials. A common misconception is that the federal education department operates US schools and sets curriculum, but that is primarily done by states and local districts.
And a relatively small percentage of funding for primary and secondary schools – about 13% – comes from federal funds. Most of the money comes from state and local taxes.
The agency also plays a prominent role in administering and overseeing the federal student loans used by millions of Americans to pay for higher education.
Soon after she was sworn in, McMahon sent the department’s 4,400 employees a memo titled “Our Department’s Final Mission”, a possible reference to Trump’s aim to shut the department.
“This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students,” she wrote. “I hope you will join me in ensuring that when our final mission is complete; we will be able to say that we left American education freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future.”
Earlier reports suggested Trump would look to end some of the department’s programmes and send others to different departments, such as the Treasury, something that still may happen but wasn’t made clear in his executive order.
America’s largest teachers’ union recently decried Trump’s plans, saying he “doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids”.
In its statement, the American Federation of Teachers said: “No-one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favour of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that.
“But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities.”
For more than 40 years, conservatives have complained about the department and floated ideas to abolish it.
Just two years after it was established by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, his Republican replacement, Ronald Reagan, led calls to undo it.
It is the smallest agency in the president’s cabinet and takes up less than 2% of the total federal budget.
Some of those staff have already been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping workforce cuts, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Nearly 2,100 people at the agency are set to be placed on leave from Friday.
Efforts by Doge to slash federal spending and radically restructure – or simply abolish – many government agencies have been overseen by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
[BBC]
Along Beirut’s downtown waterfront, Alaa is looking for somewhere to rest his head.
The Syrian refugee, originally from the occupied Golan Heights, is now homeless. He explained that he had already spent the day wandering around the Lebanese capital trying to find shelter.
He used to live in Dahiyeh – the southern suburbs of Beirut that have been pummelled by Israeli attacks, which have now killed MORE THAN 1,000 across Lebanon.
Now, he’s just looking for somewhere he can be safe. And in that context, Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival that began on Friday, is far from his mind.
When asked if he had any plans for Eid, he replied in the negative. Instead, his focus was on getting a tent.
“I got rejected from staying in a school, then I went to sleep on the corniche,” Alaa said. “Then people from the municipality told me to come here to downtown Beirut’s waterfront.”
Alaa wasn’t able to find a tent and is sleeping in the open air for now. But others in the area have, transforming a downtown more famous for its expensive restaurants and bars into a tent city for those displaced by the fighting. Across Lebanon, more than a million people have been displaced.
Lebanese are uncertain when this war will end, particularly as they have barely recovered from the conflict with Israel that ran between October 2023 and November 2024.
It makes celebrations difficult – a common theme across the countries affected by the current conflict.
In Iran, now in its third week of US-Israeli attacks – with no sign of an immediate end and an economic crisis that preceded the conflict, people are struggling to afford any of the items typically bought during the holiday season.
And it is potentially dangerous for people to shop at places like Tehran’s grand bazaar, which has been damaged by the bombing.
The religious element of Eid adds an extra sensitivity for antigovernment Iranians, some of whom now see any sign of religiosity as support for the Islamic Republic. The fact that Nowruz – the Persian New Year – falls on Friday this year means that some in the antigovernment camp will be focused on that celebration instead, and eschewing any events to mark Eid.
[Aljazeera]
King Charles has hosted a spectacular state banquet for the president and first lady of Nigeria, praising the strengths of Nigeria’s partnership with the UK.
After greeting the 160 guests in the Yoruba language, the King spoke of the “living bridge” of the Nigerian community in the UK, in a speech in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle.
Famous figures at the banquet included England rugby union captain, Maro Itoje, Olympic athlete Christine Ohuruogu and poet Sir Ben Okri, alongside senior royals including Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales.
There were special adaptations for Muslims, with the banquet taking place in the fasting month of Ramadan.
A prayer room was set aside in Windsor Castle and the usual lunch hosted by the King on such state visits did not take place.
It’s become a tradition to invent a cocktail for state visits – and in this case the “crimson bloom” was made from non-alcoholic ingredients, combining the Nigerian drink Zobo with English rose soda and hibiscus and ginger syrup.
There were also alcoholic drinks available for guests in St George’s Hall, including fine red and white wines, port and whisky.
The King’s speech reflected on the importance of religious tolerance, in which “people of different faiths can, do, and must live alongside one another in peace”.
He also told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and First Lady Oluremi Tinubu of the importance of partners such as Nigeria and the UK standing together in difficult times “when rain clouds gather”.
As well as diplomatic ties, King Charles spoke of “Afrobeats filling our concert halls and Nollywood captivating our screens”.
There was also a reflection by the King on the “painful marks” of a shared history, in a reference to colonialism.
“I do not seek to offer words that dissolve the past, for no words can,” said the King, but he hoped for a more optimistic future “worthy of those who bore the pains of the past”.
The banquet, on an elaborately decorated table filled with spring flowers, saw a meat-free menu.
It included:
- Soft boiled quail egg tartlet with watercress and kale and a basil sabayon
- Fillet of turbot, lobster mousse wrapped in spinach, beurre blanc sauce, sprouting broccoli with hollandaise sauce, fricassee of peas and broad beans, Jersey Royal potatoes
- Iced blackcurrant souffle with red fruit coulis
The two-day state visit began on Wednesday morning with a ceremonial welcome at Windsor.
In warm spring sunshine, the president and first lady – wearing traditional robes – were given the ceremonial grandeur of a royal welcome.
There was a carriage procession, bringing the Nigerian visitors into the quadrangle inside Windsor Castle, where a military band, with careful symmetry, paraded on the chequerboard lawn.
There was a gun salute, national anthems were played, guards were inspected and the Household Cavalry kicked up dust as they paraded inside the castle, in front of a viewing stand for the King and Queen and their visitors.
Official gifts were exchanged. The president and Mrs Tinubu were given hand-crafted pottery, a silver photo frame containing a picture of the King and Queen and a silver and enamel bowl.
In return, the King and Queen were given a traditional Yoruba statuette and a jewellery box featuring the faces of important Nigerian women.
President Tinubu is a Muslim and his wife is a Christian and the couple attended an interfaith event at Windsor Castle, designed to build bridges between religions.
It’s at a time of tensions within Nigeria, with a series of suspected suicide bombings this week in the north-eastern state of Borno, in which at least 23 people were killed and 108 injured in attacks blamed on hard-line Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group.
This is Nigeria’s first state visit to the UK for 37 years and such visits are a way of building relationships with international partners.
The Nigeria visit will see a strengthening of business links, including financial services. And there are personal and family connections, with more than 270,000 Nigerian-born people living in the UK.
“This state visit is about turning a historic relationship into a modern economic partnership – transforming trust into opportunity,” said Nigeria’s government spokesman Mohammed Idris.
“Nigeria’s economic reforms are unlocking the potential of Africa’s largest consumer market. The United Kingdom is a natural partner in what comes next.”
Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib has been killed, the country’s president has confirmed.
Masoud Pezeshkian said the “cowardly assassination” had left Iran “in deep mourning”, after Israel said on Wednesday it had killed Khatib in an air strike.
It comes a day after Israel announced it had killed Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, and head of the paramilitary Basij force, Gholamreza Soleimani, in strikes.
Since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on 28 February, multiple senior Iranian officials and commanders have been killed in efforts by Israel and the US to weaken the regime’s leadership.
In a post on X, Pezeshkian extended his condolences to the Iranian people over the officials’ deaths, adding he was “certain their path will continue more steadfastly than before”.
Speaking to the BBC, a woman from Tehran said the “killing of Khatib might help the people since he was among the leadership”.
“It might be that when people come out after a call to protest, the likelihood of them being killed is lower now,” she said. “Even though they all have replacements, these were the main figures.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz announced that Khatib had been “eliminated” in an Israeli strike on Tehran.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorised the IDF to eliminate any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval,” he said.
[BBC]
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